Hey everybody, Jon Stewart here bringing you an episode of my podcast, The Weekly Show for all of you TDS Ears Edition listeners. We drop new episodes every Thursday in our feed, so I would be joining us over there. For today, we are bringing you our latest episode, which we dropped after the debate to the Ears people. So here you have it. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Weekly
Show podcast with me John Stewart. We are back. We are back with Brittany Memdwick, Lauren Walker, our aristwhile producers. We have been away for months, for years. When we left, I don't even know who was in the race. It was it was Donald Trump versus Michael Ducacus, and then things switched around. Now it's Donald Trumkamala Harris. We've only been gone for two weeks, and now we come back to the earthshaking debate, which will as ABC told us,
we'll change everything. Nothing is the same. No, it's raining dogs, night is day. Nothing is the same.
Our lives are changed forever.
I assume that you both watched with baited breath. I found myself really nervous based on just how consequential the last one was, where two minutes into it, I was like, Oh, he's going to have to leave, he's not going to be able to run for president. So I was happy to see it not necessarily be revelatory or answer a lot of questions, but at least bring us back to a slightly more normal cycle, even if that meant Donald Trump yelling about people eating pets.
Yeah, it's weird that that's normal, Like that's where the bar is.
I think we've gotten to this point where, because there's so much coverage of every everything, there is an expectation that everything is the super Bowl, and I guess the debates are probably the closest thing that you can have
to that. But I do think it might be nice to get back to the idea that these political campaigns are grinding it out, convincing people that you've got policies that are going to positively impact their lives, rather than a series of gala events that will change everything and do that because I think that drama feels very manufactured. Where did you Where did you watch a debate? Long?
Oh, just my house to watch Party of One. I ate a sandwich and I kind of like white knuckled it for two minutes because it seems like the energy was nervous right the handshake thing.
I was like, I liked the handshake, John, What did you think I would have done?
Bro hug? I'm always I'm a big bro hug, Like if I were her, I walk it. First of all, I love the way she did it because it was very clear that she had decided on a game plan. And it's sort of to me it set the tone for this idea that she had a very clear idea of what she wanted to execute. And he really was like, what time's the debate? Yeah, let me show up at eight,
and whatever happens happened. So I like that It sort of set this idea that she was going to be intentional and purposeful throughout it.
He wouldn't look at her for the entire debate.
It was so weird.
I thought that was super odd. But I can't remember. He did look at Biden a few times, but I think that was more like, is this dude all right? I never felt like he had that relationship with like Hillary Clinton, so you could say, like, well, she's a strong, smart woman, so maybe he's intimidated by that. But with Hillary Clinton, like he followed her around like a looming shadow. I don't think he would have done that to Kamala Harris. I do think he's oddly kind of not sure what to do.
He isn't he dated.
He can't be normal?
Yeah, I know what to do.
Yeah. That could be the title of his biography. I can't be normal, Donald Trump. I really can't be normal. I have a very difficult time being normal. Well, we've got two reporters that are actually covering these campaigns that are going to give the inside because we can all talk. I talk all the shit I want, I very rarely know what's actually going on with any of those. So our two guests today are reporters, and we're going to
get their thoughts on what the hell happens. So let me jump let me jump in on that, and I'll see you guys on the other side. All right, everybody, we are in post debate glow, Aura enjoyment. We are going to be joined by Ashley Parker, senior national political correspondent for The Washington Postman's covering elections won Pollit serprises
as team covering elections. We've got David Graham, staff right of The Atlantic, written about Harris and Trump and following these things very closely, guys, thank you very much for joining us. David and Ashley, of.
Course, yeah, thanks for having us.
Let's talk about the debate. And I feel sorry for the national political reporters, the people that are following refters. This may be the last event that we have. It may now be just ten weeks of following people around on a bus. Have you interviewed both candidates extemporaneously? Have you spent time with Trump with Kamala Harris?
I have spent a tremendous amount of time with Donald Trump. I started, I'm gonna.
Stop you right there. I hear the exhaustion and the pain in your voice. I see it in your demeanor change. When I said have you spent time? You said it in the way of someone that perhaps has been at the DMV for thirty to thirty five years, and there was there was a pain in your voice. I could feel it.
Not gonna weigh in, I mean, I will just say I started covering this was when I worked for the New York Times. But I started covering Donald Trump two days after poor sad, curmudgeonly but ultimately sweet Jeb Bush dropped out, and I have basically covered him in some capacity ever since.
Imagine you start your presidential campaign with the high hopes of adding an exclamation point to your name. That's how well you thought, there's what what? What punctuation should we use here? Question mark period? Jeb Bush put an exclamation point next to his name on the posters, and two days after running into Trump he had to leave. Why was Donald Trump so successful in sort of steamrolling all of the Republicans back in those days?
I think, I mean a couple of reasons. One and this is why he's still fairly successful. A certain thing is I think shamelessness is his superpower, and he covering previous candidates, right, we might do if I covered Mitt Romney. You might do a fact check on Mitt Romney something he's saying, and you say, well, actually, Massachusetts wasn't always number one in job creation, you know that year was tied with Texas, or that other year it actually came
in third. And Mitt Romney would then change what he was saying on the stump. Not because he cared that the Washington Post had given him four pinocchios, though we think those noses.
Matter, solid, solid rating system, but because.
He believed he would pay a penalty with voters for seeming dishonest, and Trump sort of realized that there would be no penalty that with his base in his voters, that if he just repeated something enough and confidently enough and forcefully enough and shamelessly enough, that it could become a certain type of truth.
That I got to tell you that's the com But what was most surprising was Donald Trump immediately in the spin room confidently saying, I don't think there's going to be another debate because I won this. So I believe the phrase was tremendously. I believe he said he wanted tremendously and it was such a knockout that he didn't think. You know, he said, the only people that asked for rematches are the losers I've so clearly wanted. Is that the process that he was going through sort of what
Ashley was saying, which is, I'm shameless. I know, I got my ass kicked. I'm just going to run out there and go, wow, I'm awesome.
Yeah, I mean it's amazing.
You know.
Even his allies were saying, well, you know, he had a hard time he was going against. It was three on one because the moderators and you see Trump's being like, no, I won I had that. I think that is very much the kind of bravado and the willingness to say whatever he feels like he's got to say.
What about the Harris campaign, what was your feeling of how their team was reacting to it?
I mean, I think they were already kind of floating, and then to receive the Tailor Swift endorsement on top of that, I don't think their spirits could have been a whole lot higher.
Is that actually met? What is the Taylor Swift endorsement act? Like I knew it was a nice piece of pop culture, and I know that she obviously has very dedicated fans, But is there any thought that there were Taylor Swift fans sort of in the Venn diagram that were not you know that she was going to say, you really should look at this Kamala Harris character, and her fans would be like we no, no, no, I've been really leaning Trump on this one, Like is that a meaningful thing?
I think meat, And I think the reason is it turns people out. It's not about persuasion, it's about whether
people will do it. And so you know, she puts in a link to voting registration website, and the government said I think they'd gotten three or four hundred thousand hits on that side just from her Instagram post, So you know, enough of those votes in swing states could make a difference, not because she's going to persuade anyone, but just because maybe if they were kind of on the fence out whether to vote or feeling blaise, that I'll get them fired up.
I was struck during the debate by which subject areas the candidates were most confident, And it was very clear during the abortion part of the debate that Kamala Harris was feeling it on a visceral level was able to deliver. I thought maybe her best moment maybe that in Ukraine, where she was she was confident, she was purposeful, she was visceral in her response, and I thought it put Trump back on his heels. I thought Trump was most
confident in the warning for people's pets. Ashley, in your mind, what were the areas that you thought were most confident and least confident.
Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right on abortion. It was interesting because the Vice president, her first kind of broad answer, you could tell her voice was like a little shaky, a little nervous, and then abortion came up right afterwards. She won one hundred percent hit her stride, and I feel like that sort of gave her the confidence and sort of just the sense of grounding to
proceed with that vibe throughout the debate. I mean the other thing where I thought she was very confident and in talking to her team, this is something they practiced. They rehearsed from that opening handshake right which they described as a to me as a power move.
There into wait was so so the handshake is everything is choreographed like that. You're going to walk out there and no matter what, you're going to him and you're hitting them with a handshake.
Yes, they I mean their their goal was to make sure and this started before the debate. Their goal, and it was born out as successful, was to make sure that, as they put it, that Trump was triggered by the time he walked on stage. So that started with they released an ad featuring president former President Obama talking about crowd size on the morning of the debate. They they they with Obama, I'm not right doing that hand motion.
They blanketed, They blanketed Philadelphia where the debate was held with billboards and ads designed to troll Trump right. One had was a crowd sized one that featured a full Philadelphia pretzel for Harris and then a piece, just a mere piece of a Philadelphia pretzel that looks like a Limp Pretzel for Trump right. And so so the idea.
Being ass he's being driven in a van towards the venue, He's going to look at that and go limp pretzel. Wait, yes, no, yes, I'm I'm a full pretzel right.
Like limp Pretzel. I have to abandon all self discipline and control when I step on that debate stage. So then and you could you could watch it from that again, that opening handshake, walking over, getting in his space, introducing herself, pronouncing her name correctly. Then there was some shoot.
She she literally was going up to mantrolling him with the pronunciation. This is unbelievable, I have to say, coming off of the NFL's first weekend, this is sounding so much like when you listen to football analysts talking about schematics and a game plan for there. I mean it is, we have a scripted first fifteen plays. You're going to go in there. They have a weakness in the backfield, I mean, this is it really feels like a football game plan.
And they had I mean, I won't take you through all of them, but you could watch that debate step by step. They had these little easter eggs things she would say and do that they had practiced and believed that Trump, and they were almost always correct, would be unable to resist wasting time digressing into that. So a very subtle one that people might not have noticed was when she used, you know, there's a million analyzes you
can pull on. But when she wanted to rebut his economic plan, she did so by mentioning Wharton, which is of course where Trump famously went and takes a lot of pride. And you saw him he kind of rears back and says, well, I went to the Wharton School.
As That's when she said, the nineteen Nobel Prize economists, including ones from Wharton, and he couldn't help him.
He couldn't help himself. That was the first one. That's very subtle for those of us who have been covering Trump since twenty fifteen. A more obvious one was when she invited people to watch his rallies and then right the crowd size, says people are leaving out of boredom. That first he responded to that, and it.
Was the first time he saw his eyes went wid.
Yes, you saw the eyebrows went up, the eyes went wide. He adopted that like ten thousand foot gaze, scolar, and it was that thing that then led him into the now most viral digression about our nation's cats and dogs.
Which, by the way, as a pet owner, as somebody myself, I was watching with my dog and there was a lot of I could see a lot of fear. That's actually been my favorite thing from them. If you go on like a TikTok or an Instagram, they're putting out these reels of Donald Trump saying that, and it's just reaction shots of pets who are looking unbelievably frightened. David, you're you were kind of writing more about Trump during
all this. Did they have a similar Belichick like game plan as they walked in down to I mean, everybody talks about his game planning, as you know, he's ready for anything. Did they do any of that? Right?
They say, you know, he's been preparing for this his whole life. And while the Harris campaign was letting it be known that she had spent all this time and talking about who was doing the prep and and how you know there's an aid dressed up like Trump in a boxy suit, you know, with a whole nine yards. They totally went and they wanted people to know they were going method.
Yeah.
Sure, Trump is blustering about, oh, I don't need to prep and it was interesting to see. You know, you could hear his ally, some of them saying, Oh, He's gonna be fine, and then other people a little bit nervous about that in the moment that he started to get off track, you know, the moment we started hearing about the cats and dogs. Then you see the recriminations and you see people thinking, you know, is it really
too much to ask him to prepare? And what we've seen from a decade of this is it is too much to ask him to prepare. And if Joe Biden collapses on stage, that works for him. But if Joe Biden doesn't collapse on stage, then he tends to kind of struggle.
Right. I thought he did have a good first. I thought two and a half to three minutes. I thought then as it you know, his preparation for that early two and a half to three minutes I thought worked out very nicely. But then you can see he started to get distracted and things started to collapse and fall apart. Okay, we got to take a quick break. We're back. I want to talk about the people around them and how that manifests for the candidates, Psyche and I want to
start with Trump. My sense of him is, look, a monarchy makes a lot of sense to him. He runs the Try organization. He doesn't even run. It's not a public company. He doesn't have a board of directors. It's Donald Trump. When he hosted The Apprentice, My favorite part of the Apprentice is after he mediated a dispute between Meetloaf and Gary Busey, you know, and the end and Bucy had to leave and Meet Loaf was going to stay. There was always two people next to him at the table.
There was always that last coda of the end of the Apprentice, and it was either you know, Avanka or that dude George or somebody else. And he would go, oh that was tough, and they would go, you made the right you made the good call, Boss, well done. That was He couldn't have done anything else. Is that the vibe around him? Are there people there who tell him the truth or is he bathed in the kind of you are our little prince world that seems like has been following him his entire life.
Yeah, he gets a lot of that. I mean, there are people who try to tell him the truth, and what happens is they to fall out of favor, they don't hang around long, or as is the case with a lot of Trump people, they sort of cycle through. So they come back again, but but they don't, they don't stay long. And I think you know, what you're describing of his experience of the Trump organization has been born out in how he runs campaigns, and it was
how he was president too. I mean you'd see him frustrated that he couldn't just do things unilaterally like he he had not watched The Schoolhouse Rock, and he couldn't believe that he couldn't just do things with the power of the presidency. And and that's just his attitude is you know, he knows best and and he wants to.
Do his way. Is that in some ways comforting and that maybe his authoritarianism isn't malevolent, it's born of spoiltness, It's it's born of a more adolescent view based on being the golden child. Noakes time, take your time on this right away.
I think the result is the same.
Unfortunately, right It's so there is the but the anger is real, the malevolence is real. Yeah, boy, that's for those of you who are on the podcast. David is just nodding enthusiastic about that. Ashley, what about the Harris campaign? Can she be told the truth? Is she surrounded? You know how much of this? I'm always struck by how insulated and isolated these politicians are.
So a couple of things. It's different from the Trump campaign. First of all, because she, on the one hand, she is cycled and churned through a tremendous amount of staff, going back to her days in California to the Senate, to the campaign to the vice presidency, which is normally an indictment of someone's management style. But all of that staff, and this is something she has done very deliberately, is she is elevated and surrounded herself by women, by people
of color, by women of color. So her staff just look like they look different than Trump's staff, and they bring different perspectives and life experiences. So that's one thing. The second is recently after she moved to the top of the ticket. A small handful, but a significant handful sort of top people from Obama World and one from Clinton World came in, right, So, David.
Pluf Obama World and Clinton World. They sound like closed down amusement parks where they oh, they came in. There was Obama World. It was opened up in Nashville for a while, but then it closed down. So she brings on people who have run or have been involved in other campaigns for Democratic leaders.
Yeah, and not just that, I mean the thing that's striking to me, especially about the Obama people, and she brought in Jennifer pal Mary, who was key in Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful campaign, is these are people who have done two things successfully that she will likely need to do successfully to win. And it sort of the question can
they recreate that magic? One is they were able to harness Obama's sort of authentic excitement and enthusiasm into actually like getting information from vote and mobilizing that to the polls. That's something she'll need to do. And the other thing is Obama and Clinton took a very different approach and got a very different electoral outcome. But Obama sort of did not make race the center the historic nature of his candidacy the centerpiece.
Of liff Lees that speak for itself.
Yeah, his view as people would look at him and understand he was a black guy, right, and so he didn't need to constantly talk about it, And he talked about race in a way that too many Americans felt inclusive and inspiring. And that's also something you're seeing Kamala Harris doing with her historic candidacy.
David, is it in your mind? You know, we talked about, Boy, that was a terrible night for Trump. He's going to have to do something? Does he have to do something? It in some measure the day he came down the Golden Escalator and said, I think most Mexicans are rapists, but like sometimes they send some good people. From that moment on it it became somewhat clear this was an antibiotic resistance than candidate. The normal things that would take
out a candidate have no idea. Oh, the access Hollywood tape and all those different things. Well that was twenty sixteen. He's been through more of this than anybody. It doesn't seem as though these moments that would be disqualifying. I mean and honestly, in any other political campaign, in any other environment, if you stood on the stage, true or not and just shouted immigrants are eating dogs and people's pets.
I mean, Howard Dean was a little loud with a scream, Michael Jacakis somewhat answered a question intemporately like they'd be done. It doesn't seem to have any impact in any way, shape or form on his political fortune.
Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about him is just how how consistent his support is. He's always there in the mid forty percent when he's winning, when he's losing, it just doesn't move no matter what he does. And I don't think we've ever seen anyone like that in American politics who has such stable approval. He can't get above fifty percent and he can't fall below forty, so it doesn't matter.
But even within that stable approval, it seems, you know, now they talk about he's picking up more support in the black community or the Hispanic community, or but he's losing more support women. There are groups that move in and out, but he is consistently reckless right, and it seems to matter not.
I think one thing we're seeing this campaign from Democrats is a realization, and it took a long time for them to get to this that there's not going to be like the moment or the gaff that doesn't Trump. I think there was always this hope like, well, you know, he's going to do it this time, and they seem to have realized that just it's not a thing.
Fa My favorite thing about Democrats. My favorite thing about Democrats was that he got indicted. Now we've got him right, Like there's all these things that there was always that moment where like as soon as that Muller report comes out, goodbye Donald Trump. Like at each turn, they always seems like this is the conclusive moment. Look, he's on tape saying I want Putin to win because I love him, and just everybody's like, oh, that'll do it. None of
it doesn't right exactly. And so he what pressure does he feel? What does he think he has to do?
I think he thinks he has to turn out the base. He consistently does not do things that would look like outreach, and he you know, people make fun of his kind of silent majority rhetoric as being out of touch and being like Nixonian, but that doesn't mean, he doesn't believe it. For all the things he will say that he doesn't believe it. I think he really thinks that is why should want to win.
He should believe it because they always underestimate him in polls, and when the elections come out, he always has that silent base. I wouldn't call them the majority, but they're certainly yeah there.
I mean, I think the reason he shouldn't believe it is in twenty sixteen, he won less of the vote than Hillary Clinton. In twenty eighteen, when he made himself the center of their campaign, Republicans did poorly. In twenty twenty, he lost in twenty twenty two when he made himself the center of the campaign, again, Republicans did poorly. So there's evidence for it, but he still is really he believes it right.
It's fascinating. I never understood. In addition to the belief that Donald Trump would win and become presidential, there was also this belief that he could win and move to the center, which seemed a little more legitimate because.
Oh dear God, how many times has Van Jones given you that dewey I'd CNN, I believe Donald Trump today has become the unifier for it, like there's always that moment where somebody's like, he's really different now never.
But what is fascinating is that his base is immovable. He is almost certainly never going to lose them, and so there is this world where he could maybe bring them along a little bit. But since covering him, there's all these moments. And so the second thing is Donald Trump. The way to understand him, or one way is he's always trying to win like the minute, the hour, the day, the person directly in front of him. Right, this is
not like four dimensional chests. So people would never understand. Well, why when he was talking to the dreamers, did he say, you guys are wonderful valedictorians. Of course you should stay in the country. And then ten minutes later, when they brought in a group of sheriffs, was he like, the dreamers are just out in the outer off all, let's round them up and send them back, right, Like it makes no sense. But he's always trying to win the
people in front of him. But when he is faced with those two things, as we've seen ense abortion, where he's been all over the map, he will always always ultimately retreat back to what his far right base wants he'll move to the middle, The right wing echo chamber will freak out at him, and he will ultimately come down on their side.
Does he though, You know, so let's talk about that. Is that a purposeful move? You know? Is it the idea that he so understands how loyal his base is that he can stand up on a debate stage and say, I actually created IVF. I will personally inseminate any woman with sperm that wants it. That's how much I believe in IVF. I love it. Does he do that because he thinks I've delivered so well for my base, they'll never leave me. I can say whatever I want.
No, because then he freaks because.
So this even that's not strategic, because.
Then he freaks out right, Like he said something on the Florida abortion rule. He thought it should be longer than six weeks.
Six weeks is too short.
Six weeks is too short. Then his base flipped out, and then he came out and said, well, actually I am going to vote that seems very reasonable, right.
I think it's interesting that, you know, look what has been the Trump or far right kryptonite. It would seem to me as the court system, so anybody can say anything about anything on the radio or on Fox News other than you know, the false claims about dominion and getting sued. But it's very clear that when they talk about, oh, the fraudulent voting and there were so many legal immigrants, and then when they go to court, they get thrown out because they have no proof and they get laughed out.
I do think her style as a prosecutor, Kamala Harris, in some ways embodies a little bit of that kryptonite, and I thought in the debate she could even do more of it in the way. I was struck that, especially when talking about the economy. When you talked about abortion, she took that prosecutorial style. When she talked about the economy, she didn't, Ashley, is that because they don't they lack the confidence in that narrative, or they hadn't thought through that litigation yet.
I mean, the economy is an incredibly tricky issue for the Biden Harris administration because there's an actual there's a lot of economic indicators.
Right.
If you're like pointing to these tangible things, you can argue that the economy has improved under their administration versus former President Trump. But the things that people actually feel right which they vote on, which is like what are interest rates? And can you afford to buy a new house or do your three kids still have to share a bedroom? And what is the cos I mean this sounds cliche, but what is the cost of eggs and milk?
And when you're driving? You know, I had someone in the Biden administration to say, every single gas station with the cost of gas is a billboard that hurts us when you're driving. Those things have not changed yet, right because they're.
Lagging welltain has the billboards for that has but.
Sort of again like the vibes, the feel and the sense people feel that things felt better under Trump. And so there's something incredibly insulting to voters who are stressed about money or stretched to get to the end of the month to hear Harris saying things are fantastic now. So it's hard to prosecute that case.
All right, we'll be right back. We're back, so let me. I think this is a great place for us to talk about a little bit because I think this talks to how you just described it, Ashley. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, and I don't understand why a candidate feels that, at least that beginning framing is something that they are not allowed to do. You know that they're not allowed
to say, Look, the economy is incredibly complex. I think we've made some strides in the right direction through the pandemic. Let me walk you through what some of those decisions were. I know that if you're at home and it doesn't feel that way to you, you know, the economy is very personal to people. Why can't that be the discussion instead of of are you better off than you were four years ago? And the first thing is I'm going
to give everyone six thousand dollars for childcare? And you're like, wait, what just happened, David? Why can't candidates? And I thought this was a real issue during the pandemic with our healthcare officials. Why can't they trust us enough to talk to us like human beings in those areas where they feel like it's not completely black and white.
The people who they're talking to, they think are not the most sophisticated voters, and I think they are probably right, like undecided voters are now the people who are paying close attention, they don't necessarily some of them may have really no ins views, but a lot of them don't, and so there's a certain amount of they're pandering to the lowest common denominator and they feel like they can't they can't get nuanced.
It's not that they're dumb, or that the Harris campaign thinks they're dumb, but they do understand that this is a group of voters who is not particularly tuned into politics. Right, They're not paying a ton of attention. They don't really they have other things on their mind, including the cost of groceries. Right, Like they're going to tune in at the very end of the election. They're also, and this is kind of fascinating, one of the most skeptical groups
of voters. I was talking to a Democratic strategist. You said, when we do focus groups with swing voters, and I say, you know, you know, well, what if I told you that Donald Trump appointed the three most conservative justices who helped overturn Roby Wade with that change your view of him? And the first thing out of these voters' mouths is like, well, if that's true, I'm going to have to go home
and google it. Right, So they're also dear God, so it's a group of voters who are very distrustful of institutions, of political parties, of the media. So that is all part of the discussion of how do we message to them, how do we win them over? When do we win them over? When do we hit them with this message? When do we just get them to trust that, you know, we're someone they should considers. That's absolutely all part of the discussion.
See, this is the most fad anything. I am so struck by. You know, every debate and all the things. You know, we all have kind of now a boilerplate format that we go through. There's the debate, then we go to the pundits, and then immediately you go to and now we've got our own polster and he's with a group of undecided voters and they do that, and that always struck me as one of the most ridiculous exercises in nothingness that I have ever seen in my life. Well,
I listened to it. How many of you now are for Kamala Harris? Oh whatever, we just watched. Sure, that's fine, aren't we infusing that undecided group of voters as an idea that they've been vetted for their indecision? Whereas like half the time it's political operatives just standing there or
the same person on the panel every four years. You know, there's a certain when you put somebody on a news channel, there's a sense that that has been vetted, and when you really drill down into it, it doesn't seem that way at all, Ashley, Is there is there any value in those kinds of theatrical moments with the panels?
So I think there's tremendous value in focus groups? Is there value in those TV focus groups immediately after debates with undecided voters? And like, also, let's just puss like, like what does it actually mean to be undecided in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty four? When your choices, regardless of what you think, like are so diametrically opposite that like like you're just truly like it's sort of like a like an existential question of like how does
this even happen? But but focus groups in general are incredibly valuable and insightful, and whenever anyone lets me sit in on one, I always do so.
And like, what is the difference between one that you've seen on TV and one that you've sat in on so often?
Ones you know, campaigns, and these groups are running them for different things, Like they're not trying to find out who after this debate, who are you going to vote for? You know, they're trying to find out like how do you feel about these issues, for instance, and what might be a compelling message? Right, So one thing I think of a democratic strategist. I was not in this group,
but he told me. He said they were talking to some voters and they said, you know, let's say Kamala Harris comes to your town and you get to do an activity. You get to bring her and show her something in your town. What would you show her in A voter said.
Oh, it's like a bachelorette hometown. Yes, Oh that's lovely. Now I'm going to I'm going to take them to beat my family and then we're going to go to the custard shop.
Right. But but this voter said, I want I would I would bring her to work with me. I would bring her to my first job, and then I would bring her to my second job. Right, we would take the three buses it takes to get from my first job to my second job, because I want her to understand, like how hard I am working and how I am still barely surviving. So that is kind of relevant and useful information of where voters are and what they need from the candidates in their lives.
You know, for me, it's shocking that that's what it would take for a candidate to understand what people's working lives are. Like the idea that that would be revelatory speaks almost more to how insulated politicians are from the
day to day lives of their constituents. I mean, that's what I seem to have learned from my time in Washington is how unbelievably eccentric the culture of Washington is and how easily it sets up barriers between the people you represent and the culture of the town that you live in. Washington runs on a completely different currency than
the rest of the world. Let me ask you both then, having experienced these campaigns, to you do you feel the disconnect that candidates have with the constituents or in the country, and for your experiences, what has struck you as the biggest disconnect between Washington in general and the country at large.
I'll start because I can double advocate it. I in before Trump was even like the word on people's tongues as a politician. I did a road trip in like twenty fourteen, driving like the old route sixty or sixty six out to Indianapolis is where I flew home. And it was just talking to voters. It was talking to
like hundreds upon hundreds of voters. And the thing I picked up, because again it's always good to talk to voters, was this sense that like these people, Democrats, Republicans whoever, were furious right, like you would go to these houses and they all had I was with a photographer who
noticed this, Like visually, it wasn't me. They all had like bits of Americana right, like flags and things like that on house, and a lot of houses that you know, maybe needed like a new code that were kind of crumbling, right, And they what they were furious was, and what they said was, look, I did everything right right, Like I got a job, I worked nine to five, I had a pension. I moved to this district to go to
the right school. I bought a house that my bank told me I could buy right that it would be irresponsible for me not to buy. Now, look, every single house on my block is foreclosed. And those clowns in New York and Washington, who you know who ruined my four oh one k and now I can't retire who burned you know, who did all of this, Like there's no consequences for them, and they were furious and they didn't have the language, but they wanted to like burn
it all down and drain the swamp. And that was something for instance that Donald This was not a disconnect at all Donald Trump. And again I don't think it was from doing a road trip and talking to hundreds of voters, but he viscerally, instinctually understood that anger, understood that frustration with the system.
But that's my point. How is it that, I mean, after the two thousand and financial crisis and everything that occurred, how is it that Washington did not understand that? And the problem with Trump is not necessarily what his diagnosis is, it's what his prescription is. Look, the idea that he figured out people were disconnected and angry and all those things and they wanted to drain the swamp is one thing.
But he doesn't look like someone who wants to reform the system in a positive way to take the corruption out. He wants the deed to the swamp signed over to him because he wants full and total, you know, monarchical control over everything. So I think that's we're sort of talking about the same thing, which is how to fuck does Washington and politicians who are from these districts not understand that in their bones and try and reform this
system that's created this anger rather than just take it over. David.
I mean, I think one thing that struck me when I first moved to Washington was how how actually most of the people in politics are totally normal, Like they're you know, when you're reading about them from Afar, they seem like they're special, and then you get there and you're like, oh, these are just these are just ordinary jerks, Like they're as a as everyone else. And I think part of the problem is as you elevate, you do
get further removed from those things. You have fewer opportunities to to be a normal person and to be around normal people. You're around the same people in politics, and they start to rub off on each other, and like, I don't know how you saw that, Because if you're running the government, you have to run the government, Like I need my senators to be paying attention to the legislation. They're dealing with and also to like actually be in
touch with real people. I think that's a tough thing to do, and I think the structures of government push against that. And I also think like the pandemic was a problem for that. I think a lot of politicians just recently lost touch because they were not, especially Democrats, were not actually campaigning outside of zoom, and I think that has created a disconnect and they're they're they're having to work hard to try to rebuild that and to like remember how to talk to civilians right.
Ultimately, I think that these are these are great points in getting out there and in your minds, you know, would more debates be more helpful? Do you think for voters would you like to see more? I don't know that I would want to watch another one because I don't feel that I would learn anything particularly astonishing, And it would be like watching in the way that people watch sometimes motor races, which is like I just want to see somebody spin out and flip over, you know,
and have something unbelievably terrifying or exciting happening. Is there more to learn in your minds from that that we haven't seen already, or would it be an exercise and spectacle.
Why not both? I think they're important.
I think you have it all.
Yeah, I do think they're valuable. And I think part of that is.
Because the candidates, both of them, spend so little time in situations where they don't get to choose the question or they don't get to pick a friendly person. Is not a controlled environment, and so whether they're taking questions from David Mure and Lindsay Davis or taking questions from the other candidate, it forces them to do something they don't do all the time, and that provides us a better sense of like what their character is, how they think on their feet, what they actually believe.
And so I think it's worthwhile, Ashley, what do you think? Yeah?
I mean, would our debates is helpful with getting more information than if, say, each candidate sat down with like the subject matter experts at the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal. No, absolutely not. But are those two candidates going to do that?
No?
Absolutely not. So to David's point, debates maybe the best of like the not particularly great.
Focus it right, Ashley, as somebody who's had the pleasure of moderating one of those, is there a change that you would make in the formats. I mean I think, you know, unfortunately, moderating a debate is like hosts and the oscars. There's really not much of an upside. And you know, I thought they did a fine jobs, as most of the people that have done it have done
a fine job. Is there a change that you would make in the format that you believe would make it more informational, more revelatory, more insightful.
It's a good question. I mean I actually thought they I mean, moderating in a debate, right, it's sort of like being a kicker in football, right, Like you're only remembered if you go wide, you know, right, Yeah, So the best thing for debate moderators to be on memory. You know, you remember the debate, you remember the moments,
not the moderators. I mean, I thought David Muir and Lindsay Davis did a fantastic job including it is it is incredibly difficult, as someone who was interviewed him to fact check Donald Trump in real time, and they in
certain key moments they were prepared. And David Muir, especially in some of those moments like with the cats and dogs, I mean, he had the information at his disposal from a verified, reliable source, and he he was so he was so sort of calm, which is not easy to do those situations.
Yeah, no, absolutely. Do you think would it be possible to do, you know, sort of two candidates sitting in front of each other just talking. Is that something that we could even pull off in a modern political era?
Can you imagine Donald Trump doing that?
Personally? I cannot imagine him doing anything where he is not the sole arbiter of the rule book and the rules of engagement. I just think, I mean, it gets back to what we had said earlier. I think his entire upbringing has been as the inheritor of the castle and that everything that's been done has been to his. Look, his first mentor outside of his father was Roy Kohane, Like, you don't do that when your methodology is collaboration and openness.
Like you do that when you want to get away with shit as best you can and go scorched earth on everybody else. So I just think that's his methodology. But as a country, it seems like we might be better served, you know, if if they could.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's tricky because the reason that they the reason that you see people, you know, candidate's demagoguing and bending the truth and doing whatever in these things is because the cameras are rolling, and also they're valuable because the cameras are rolling and voters can see that. If you could somehow get them to forget what was going on, I think that would help. But it's a you know, in the same way that c SPAN you just blew my mind.
Like so it's almost like Schrodinger's candidate, Like if we if we weren't watching this and we weren't filming it, So, how much has coverage do you think changed our politics? Like we all talk about sunlight is the best disinfectant and transparency, but has our transparent Like would these guys be much better if we weren't there?
I mean, I think you can make a pretty convincing argument that c SPAN helped break Congress because suddenly.
You can watch them do it. So, yeah, that's funking Span. I knew it, those pricks. We've been all looking in the wrong direction to blame somebody. It's s SPAN's fault for putting security cameras up and turn the camera around.
That sounds like a sleep pitch to me.
David done se SPAN's fault. Well, guys, I know you've got another what is this ten weeks of this? What do we got now somewhere around there?
Who?
Yeah, you guys aren't doing it like your prisoners, where you're just checking off days as you go along. You're just in it right now, and that just is what it is.
Well. Also, I will just say I think people are skeptical that it necessarily ends on election day.
Oh right, I keep forgetting that. That's yeah. Are you seeing the campaigns being as aggressive with the post election strategizing and scheming and game planning as they are for the debates and such?
Yeah? Absolutely, And again it's not just until the electoral right, It's like, will if Donald Trump loses, will he accept the results? He's shown no indication. What will his supporters do?
Right?
Like that's another open question.
Oh yeah. I mean you've got the legal war rooms, but you also just have this sort of like contingency planning. I like to take a vacation after the election because I'm usually exhausted and I'm just like, when is that is that?
Is that? Ye?
January seventh?
January?
Like when can I use my Marriot points?
Thank you both? Very much for joining us and talking about that. Ashley Parker, Senior national political correspondent for The Washington Post. David Graham, staff writer at the Atlantic, Guys, your insights into what Thank you for giving a much clearer perspective having been involved in all this, uh and and really helping us understand sort of what's what's going on behind what c SPAN is showing us. I really do appreciate it.
Thank you, Thank you.
I don't what they do the day to day. I could not do that. I would lose my shit.
It already feels too much.
I lost my shit just being in the conversation with them for an hour. It's so claustrophobic.
Yeah, props to them.
I thought it was really interesting though. They were like, I don't know when to plan the vacate, Like your whole life is consumed by sort of these endless campaigns. And they're like, oh, yeah, we used to know November eighth, I could get a club, med in turks of cake cooasts and decompressed for five days. And now they're like, could be January. Might have to then jump in and cover the Civil War, Like we don't even know what's going to happen, topsy Turvy, topsy Turvy? What else we
got as we roll on? Now? Yeah, we're back weekly show pod banging out the episodes every week. What else we got?
Well?
While we were gone, we put out a call for our listeners to either give us some suggestions, what we should cover, why they might be upset with you, et cetera. So, I I think, just to get started, I'm going to start with someone had a really interesting new idea for how we should handle debates, which I think is cool. They said, if anything productive is going to get discussed, we need two desks, two pens, one prompt, five paragraphs dueling,
five paragraph essays. If we asked that of our children to graduate high school, it's fair to ask that of our elected reps.
Boy, what a nice idea. You give them a prompt, you give them forty five minutes, pencils down, and then they have to read their essay and discuss it.
But can you imagine Trump doing that?
Can you? Is there anything more exciting than watching people write? Oh?
Actually, this person went on and said we should do asmr of the pen and paper. You could cut that up on TikTok.
You know this is a person that clearly put in a lot of thought into this and in many ways should be called upon. Forget about the legal women voters or the debate Commission. I think we should put whatever it is at Banana twelve of you know, he should be there or she should be the producer of the next Yes, that's lovely.
Okay, all right, we have a good question, and actually this is something that we've talked about. But how this person wants to know? How do you talk to someone who believes conspiracy theories?
Oh? I don't think you can. I think it depends on how far gone they're going. But you know, one of the things you realize about people who believe conspiracy theories is they're not because they always say, I'm just asking questions. But when you ask questions, if you're not willing to hear answers, then you're clearly not just asking questions.
What you're trying to do is just so doubt. The thing that always strikes me about conspiracy theories because I'm generally skeptical, right, and that's always the basis of a conspiracy theory. The official story that you've been told is not the total story, which I is an ethos. I believe in that. I believe that oftentimes generally, I don't believe it's through malevolent although I think at times it's
through malevolence. I think it's either through in competence or that generally stories are not linear and there are facts that are inconvenient or don't quite fit in. But the problem I have with conspiracies is they don't apply the same skepticism to the counter narrative. And it's very hard
to permeate that. And it's not to suggest that people shouldn't be skeptical or that they shouldn't challenge the official line, and they shouldn't be where, but what they should understand is very rarely do official lines have their shit together to the point that there won't be inconsistencies. But those inconsistencies are different than a malevolent and surefooted interpretation that it was actually fully this other thing that's hard.
I think a new trend is that the conspiracy theory minded people don't necessarily have a counter narrative. They just poke holes in in the narrative and say something else is true true. Yeah right, You don't need to have like a full narrative anymore, do.
You have friends that are conspiracy theorists in those areas, and what would those be.
Yeah, I mean that's why this question really stood out to me, was like, you know, holidays and I it's people I love, people I'm very close with. And it also goes to like coffee's going to kill you, right, Like the COVID vaccine is the reason that you're getting skin cancer whatever. Like all of these things are on Instagram and I'm seeing it on the internet. I mean we even sawd on the debate, like he was like
I saw it on TV. So it becomes like a real problem where you're like, I love these people, but I just can't you.
Know, how do we find that balance between questioning whether or not like a COVID vaccine can cause you know, bad effects. Yeah, and every time a football player gets injured it's because of that. Like there's there's got to be a space for for skepticism. It's such an important part of discourse, but it can't fall into that. Maybe that's it, maybe saying to them, you know, I appreciate your skepticism on that. I feel I have questions about
what you're saying. There's certain I have a certain maybe that's a way to diffuse it. I have no fucking idea. Yep, that's a tough one.
I know. Yeah, let me know when you figure it out.
Thanksgiving is coming. I gotta figure it out quickly. Yeah, you got to get this done.
Do you have room for one more?
John?
One more? Bring all right? Bring it.
People want to know what is the toughest enery you've ever done? And why?
I gotta tell you Harry Reid was a tough one because Harry Reid was the Senate Majority leader, senator from Nevada. Yeah, passed away, but had a really interesting life and had written a book about it. Was raised in a literal dirt floor shack in you know, the desert, and you know, really the kind of poverty that you know is dust bowldy.
And so he brings on and he comes on to sit down, and I'm sitting with him and I start to you know, you were raised on a dirt floor and to come from that to go and he really did not seem familiar with the story. And it was when it wasn't a tough interview and that it was combative, it was more bewildering. Like I think it was about three minutes in, I was like, have you read this book? Because it's fascinating, it's it's your story. You should really
look at it because it's remarkable. But it was just one of those like look, man, these guys are They're running around all day, they're busy, they're up on a book store, and I think he just was in like a brain fart era. But for me, I had been invested in reading the whole thing and I'm parsing it with him, and he really was like, where was that now, Nevana.
He was giving you nothing.
We have to find his ghostwriter.
Nothing. Yeah, but those those are the tough ones. And then there's always the combative ones. The ones I hate the most are there'd be people that write the books that are like liberals skull fuck children, And then you're like, why would you say that, And you go, well, I
don't think we're that far apart liberals and conservatives. I think where you know, it's they take an incredibly strong position for their reactionary audience in the book, and then you bring them on and they're like, ah, people are just people, and if we all just I'd like to get back to that feeling. On September twelfth when we were all one nation and you're like, well, then maybe you shouldn't write that liberals are an enemy column within
the United States that are trying to destroy it from within. Yeah, so those are also those are the ones that also can give you problems.
Sounds fun.
Yeah, it's fun, but it's all good and we've had another lovely pod. We are back now, our break is over. As always, I want to thank lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Britney Memedowick, video editor and engineer Rob Vittolo, who I want to tell the audience survived in earthquake during the recording of this podcast. Rob, are you still there? Are you alive? Hang it in there. We're hanging in there. Rob, You've survived a five point one earthquake while we were
talking and didn't lose internet. Yeah.
I don't want to give any utility too much credit there, but I.
Do appreciate it. You're probably right, but you are. You are safe, and you continue to operate in the genius manner that you always do, and we appreciate it.
Rob's always killing it.
He's always killing it. Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boys, researcher and as social producer Gillian Sparent has always executive producers Chris Pick, Shane and Katie Gray. What are the socials, Brittany.
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